1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power saving technique for an image processing apparatus, and more specifically relates to an image processing apparatus, a power saving control method, and a storage medium which realizes an effective power saving control.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a technique is known that switches to a power saving mode such as a suspend to random access memory (STR) condition while idling in order to reduce power consumption of an image forming apparatus which has an electrophotographic printing system. In the STR condition, a context which is being processed by a main system is stored in random access memory (RAM), and power supplied to a device is stopped so that the device switch to the saving power condition which has a relatively low power consumption in comparison to a regular power mode.
Further, the image forming apparatus connected to a network receives various communications via the network. So a technique is known for responding to communication from the network in the power saving mode. In the technique described above, in the power saving condition, a sub system is utilized which has a lower electric power consumption, and easy packet communication response is executed by the sub system. Meanwhile, the main system switches from the power saving mode to the regular power mode so that communication which cannot be responded to by only the sub system and communications which are executed by the image forming apparatus are processed by the main system.
As an example of a background art described above, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-29102 (patent document 1) is aimed at enabling a packet reply in patent document 1 during the power-saving mode. It is disclosed that in the case in which a packet received from the network is a packet requiring a send back that does not need to be processed by the information processing apparatus in the power saving mode, the information processing apparatus generates a reply packet corresponding to the received packet, and sends the generated reply packet to an apparatus which sent the packet requiring a send back via the network, while maintaining the power saving mode.